Re-teaching a Thing Its Loveliness

In yesterday's post there's this bit from Galway Kinnell's poem,

    Sometimes it is necessary
    to re-teach a thing its loveliness

My experience is it's always necessary to re-teach a thing, a human thing, its loveliness. I've never met anybody who didn't need this re-teaching in one way or another. Yet we can only teach loveliness this way if we know it in ourselves. And we can only know it in ourselves as we re-teach ourselves (many times, in many ways) our own lost loveliness.

We have to start here.

'Here' starts with recognizing those places in ourselves we experience as unlovely. Recognizing those places in the company of compassion.

Jesus said,

    Come to me all you who are weary and weighed down and I will give you rest.

This is such a wonderful invitation to a depth of grace we long for, a grace we recognize we need.

Grace happens.

Grace happens more often as we learn the secret of being intentional about it and opening to it--the secret of showing up for grace. Showing up for grace is synonymous with spiritual formation.

Re-teaching ourselves our deep-down loveliness is part of our formation. Taking contemplative time to stand still long enough to receive a blessing is our work. The blessing is a gift.

How long do we need to stand still?
What's qualities of mind and heart do we bring to stillness?
Can these qualities be cultivated?
How can it be REST if we have to CULTIVATE it?

There's a lot of good teaching out there about this stuff. But like so much of life, understanding (though helped so very much by wise teaching) finally only comes by experience.